Arthaus: Autonomy

 Arthaus: Day Fifteen


You gave me more questions than you did answers. Why do we pursue autonomy? You said you wanted to look for a group unconscious, and I argue that you've found it. If the group unconscious is so beautiful, why do we want autonomy? Is it worth it? There's pain in autonomy, is it not better to just stay and be part of it all? Thank you for sharing.

Alon was on the ground, humping upwards. 'Nnnnnnnngggggnnngggghhhh' A low rumbling emanated from him, channeling Eros as he sent his sacral chakra upwards again and again. And then came the light 'ah, ah, ah'. Was this the release? He went back to humping again. He wanted to explore the rape in his myth, but I'd forgotten his sentence. Andrew wanted to explore feminine beauty. Orlando wanted to explore 'the surrender to sexual needs'. It seemed appropriate that we were watching Alon push the boundaries before Thomas brought the session to a halt. And then Andrew was requested to go back up to perform 'wild oceans' with his hips. Eros was definitely in the space, and before my friends left the space, I made a little oath to embrace Eros.

And then Juan was in the space, exploring the 'aggression of gentleness'. He kept running around the space, and when he lent voice to it, it was to the side or the back of the space. Once, he bent down and roared at the ground. Thomas essentialized his words to simply 'aggression', told Juan to stand his ground and do it to us. And when Juan finally gave in and screamed 'AAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHHHH' at us, there was s release in the air. Thomas went into the space and took off the mask. For a brief moment, Juan looked down as though embarrassed, and then he was reminded to open his eyes and share it with us. Remnants of aggression were still visible even as he grinned. Arms outstretched on the vertical with palms facing us, there was even a hint of gentleness in them. 'Aggression of gentleness' indeed.

Annette was exploring 'starry, starry night', and so Thomas sent another 3 of us up into the space to explore it with her. I started off expanding my body - it is this big - slowly since space was breathlessness. I began tilting, like any good spaceman would, until I hit the floor and stayed there watching the skies. Then I saw a shooting star, and became the shooting star which promptly disappeared as I breathlessly watched the space. Annette was a magician, throwing sparks. At her next throw, I became another shooting star. Then I channeled time as a robot. Interestingly, Nimue had the same jerky movements, which reminded me of a machine. Time machine perhaps? We met at her space like cogs, were affected, then moved on. I morphed into a fiery red dwarf star. As Annette looked at me, I began to orbit around her, increasing the speed until I broke free and crashed to the ground in a heap. I stared back up into the night sky. And Thomas reminded us to hold the space as we took off the mask. I kept the wonder on my face as I slipped the mask off, and it was almost amplified a little. Imagination.

It was the third day of repeating the myth, and I was done with death and living. I'd died, and I'd refused death, and it seemed impossible to redo either of them, and both were extremely tragic and vertical. So I chose to explore 'asymmetry'. And since I hadn't related to the others in the space, I chose to explore that too. After putting the mask, asymmetry morphed really easily - too easily - into a monkey, and I felt jealousy as I superimposed the image of Baldur on Juan, who was tall, handsome and taking up space. And then Alexie was whispering to me that Juan was vulnerable to Mistletoe, and I ran to my corner to make the spear. Hodur took the spear and walked uncertainly towards Stephanie, who was channeling war goddess. I handed the spear to her, and she ignored me as she slaughtered another innocent. I knew I had to do it, so I threw it at Baldur. And then Loki saw Baldur fall on the ground and scampered for joy. A nasal laughter emitted from my mask, and I hit the end of my breath with the laughter, scraping it for schadenfreude. Estella and Constantsa would say this was the moment it seemed like I was discovering the unknown. Juan stood up, and I scrambled back, horrified. Baldur lived!

Sarah made her way to the vertical eventually. Stephanie continued channeling her inner war goddess. Orlando was busy saying fuck-it to the world. Lisa made her way out of the abyss. Nimue struggled with the horizontal, becoming a mix of wind-fire with some direction. Constantsa back-pedaled, trying to let go of her past. Dilreen was dragged around a lot, and then refused to be dragged around. Estella became an owl. Mathilde was a tiger, drawing up that curled energy in her. It was pretty cathartic, watching everyone confront these lifetime themes in the space.

Then we stepped into the space as two groups to perform 'Autonomy'. You wake up in a place you don't like. You leave it, and get on a boat and journey on. In my group - the younger group - we were all fascinated by the concept of group unconsciousness, so much so that we didn't nail down any specifics of the journey. After 30 minutes of discussion, we simply came up with themes we want to explore, and possibilities. Inasmuch, we performed a simple piece of waking up, being push-pulled by the space, pushing each other, forming a group mind in the middle of the space, following a leader to our deaths, and then finishing in various places. (We could not agree on the ending). In the other group - the older group - it turned out they couldn't agree on anything, so they performed a piece on their discussion. There was a lot of pulling and dragging, a lot of 'LOOK AT ME!', people sitting out, leaving the space, and a continuous noise and angry charge in the space. Two very different pieces on autonomy. I suppose, on the spectrum of autonomy.

There was so much emotion, so much pent-up charge. I could barely able to socialize in any verbal manner that night. Even after a couple of drinks, my neo-cortex refused to function.

And that was how I found myself on a small dusty, creaky stage at a night-club called Loophole, with Jonas next to me, paying tribute to a half-eaten watermelon in my hand, gyrating the 'wild ocean' hips.

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